On the night of June 15, the city council of Albany, California, voted to ask voters whether to use ranked choice voting for city elections. The measure will be on the November 2020 ballot. Thanks to Jim Lindsay for this news.
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On June 15, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Richard Nelson, an Obama appointee, issued an order in Pavek v Simon, 0:19cv-3000. This is the case filed by the Democratic Party over the order of candidates on the general election ballot. The existing law says the nominees of the qualified parties appear above the independent candidates and the nominees of the unqualified parties. The existing law puts the qualified party that got the fewest votes in the last election on the top line, and puts the qualified party that got the most votes in the last election on the bottom line, although above the independent candidates.
Minnesota currently has four qualified parties: Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Republican, Legal Marijuana Now, and Grassroots-Legalize Marijuana.
Here is the order. It is possible the Democratic Party won’t gain any actual advantage from this ruling. Whereas before the Republican Party was listed on the top line in all races in which either of the two marijuana parties have no nominee (which is the great majority of the partisan races), the lottery may produce a result that still puts Republicans above Democrats.
The order says that the state should hold a lottery among the qualified parties, to determine the order for their nominees. The order rejected the other alternative, to rotate all the candidates (even the independent candidates and the nominees of the unqualified parties) within each precinct, so that every candidate would appear on the top line in a certain share of precincts. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The Working Families Party has finished its petition for party status in New Mexico. As a new party, it will nominate by convention. This is the first new state in which the WFP has sought party status, since it petitioned in Oregon a decade ago.
On June 15, proponents of a Georgia local recall filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the law that says only residents of the jurisdiction may circulate petitions to recall a local official. Malone v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:20cv-2513. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Leigh M. May, an Obama appointee. The plaintiffs are requesting expedited relief on their request for injunctive relief. Here is the complaint.
UPDATE: here is the brief.
On June 15, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Arizona Libertarian Party v Hobbs, 19-757. The Ninth Circuit had upheld a law that kept all Libertarians off their own party’s primary ballot for all congressional and state office in 2016 and 2018 (and has done so again in 2020). As a result, there are no minor party candidates for Congress in Arizona this year for Congress (because there are no other minor parties on the ballot in Arizona).
The U.S. Supreme Court has not accepted a cert petition on ballot access filed by a minor party or independent candidate since 1991.
UPDATE: see this article about the refusal to hear the case, at Arizona Law.